


The Doctor who came to tea

by travellinghopefully



Series: Whouffaldi Fanfiction Countdown [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, fluffiest fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:45:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/travellinghopefully/pseuds/travellinghopefully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, whouffaldi fanfiction countdown week 4 (so, I'm behind, sue me)</p>
<p>This is based on the children's classic, The Tiger Who Came to Tea - with apologies to Judith Kerr</p>
<p>Its Wednesday, the Doctor has arrived at Clara's flat for tea - what could possibly go wrong? Really?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Doctor who came to tea

**Author's Note:**

> Danny is fairly incidental - sorry Danny.
> 
> Kate is incidental - sorry Kate.
> 
> Judith Kerr - really, really sorry.

Once, there was a little girl called Clara, and she was stuck in an interminable staff meeting.

Her phone was on silent, but every so often it vibrated against her leg. She had glanced at it, but after meeting the Headmaster’s raised eyebrows and the query of, “Is there a problem, Miss Oswald?” she had given a shake of her head, a mumbled apology and studiously ignored it. She felt like one of her Year 10s about to have her phone confiscated for messing about in class.

She partly listened to what was being said, about target setting, parent’s evening, attainment, SATs, OFSTED looming, blah blah blah – oh fiddlesticks, she was turning into a character from Peanuts. All she was really thinking about was who might have phoned. It couldn’t or shouldn’t be her Dad, she had talked to him last night. It couldn’t be Danny – he was in the same meeting. It was probably about PPI.

It was Wednesday. It could be the Doctor, his grasp of time was very fluid. She was almost certain she had told him she had a meeting and that Danny was coming for dinner. It would be good for them to meet, for them to talk. Her two special men, they would love each other, what could possibly go wrong? 

She didn’t start listing the possibilities and making notes in the margin of her agenda. She wasn’t remotely twitchy about the Doctor, in her flat unsupervised. He had an uncanny of deciding to be “helpful” and “improve” things that he should best leave alone. She couldn’t speak to her toaster ever again and to be honest it was just strange forming that sentence.

Clara realised that the Head had almost certainly asked her something. Danny as nodding at her. So she said, 

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s settled then,” said the Head, and Clara was none the wiser. 

What had she just agreed to? It better not have been the residential study revision week. Danny smiled at her, he wanted to go, she didn’t. She loved teaching, she adored her students, butshe was happy to go home at the end of the day, close the door, live her life....spend time with the Doctor. For Danny, work seemed all encompassing. Danny had never talked about his time in the army, but he filled every moment, running, volunteering at the weekend, after school clubs. Something had happened, she should ask him, she should have talked to him before now. What was it that he felt that he had to atone for? She should be a better girlfriend. What she thought about was the Doctor, in her flat.

The Doctor was bored, the Doctor was early. Good, PE wasn’t here, but neither was Clara. He wanted to see her, tell her dinner wasn’t a good idea. His idea was wonderful. He nodded emphatically to himself. He should phone her, he did. She didn’t answer, he phoned her again in case it hadn’t worked. Her phone was truly primitive, but she’d refused to let him upgrade it. He tutted, he phoned again. He texted, he put in those little yellow pictures she was fond of, he had no idea which ones, he pressed a random selection. He phoned again, texted twice more and talked to the toaster about the weather, it really had an excellent grasp of complex meteorology.

Selecting his favourite mug from her cupboard, he told the kettle to turn on and frowned when it failed to comply. He shook it. No water. He filled it and continued to stare. He turned it on, stupid inferior kettle. He found the tea, the milk, the sugar and the biscuits – he had no idea why Clara didn’t leave them somewhere convenient. Under the living room armchair and at the back of the hall cupboard? It was as if Clara didn’t want him to find them. No, that was just silly. He added sugar and milk to his tea, when the kettle finally boiled. Hmmm, Clara was out of milk and sugar, he put a helpful note on her fridge. And she needed more biscuits. He did put the packets in the bin, the empty milk container he put back in the fridge – it would be a helpful reminder.

He decided to re-categorise her books, literature was especially important to her, so she would appreciate it. The light in the hall was being stubborn, he decided it was definitely time to fix it, he even remembered to turn off the electricity first. Seriously, how was he expected to know that he’d turned off everyone’s electricity? They were surprisingly angry. He didn’t answer the door to Clara’s flat, he also reconsidered putting up a helpful and informative notice, with diagrams. He forgot what he was doing with the light and did remember to turn the poser back on before everything in Clara’s freezer melted. The fish fingers were questionable. It would be best if he ate those. 

The fine layer of resulting carbon residue that coated Clara’s flat was interesting. He binned the fish fingers and decided that “interesting” might not be the rod Clara used. He cleaned, thoroughly, efficiently and effectively. There was no trace of black soot anywhere. There was a charred fish smell. The Doctor went through Clara’s drawers to ensure none of her clothes smelled, she was quite particular about her clothes. He hastily reconsidered what he was doing when he became aware of the nature of the garment he was holding to his nose. He silently asked the gods that she never notice what he’d done and hoped he had replace everything as he’d found it/them, he made strangled noises.

It occurred to him that the charred fish smell was emanating from his own apparel. He removed everything, unconsciously leaving a trail of clothing and entered Clara’s bathroom. He filled the bath to the brim with hot water, adding a splosh of something that was an interesting colour and didn’t smell offensive – it might, possibly, just lightly have reminded him of Clara, not that had anything to do with anything at all. Somehow, he failed to remember elementary physics (he presumed that the fish fingers when they combusted had released a mild neurotoxin) and he displaced a considerable volume of water and copious bubbles when he sat down in the bath. 

He didn’t neglect to put clothes on to answer the door to the irate downstairs neighbour, it simply didn’t occur to him. He flung the door open, believing Clara must have forgotten her key – a typical pudding brain thing to do. The total stranger who stood there, gasped open mouthed, turned and fled. Honestly, humans, he would never understand them. He finished his bath and ran his hands through his hair. For goodness sake, the soot was every where. He chose a green bottle, and he didn’t think about Clara’s hair. There was a significant trail of clothing, towels, opened bottles and sooty footprints. Wrapped in Clara’s largest and fluffiest towel, the Doctor stomped back to the TARDIS to get fresh clothing. It would have been expedient for him to have picked things up on the way – he didn’t.

Clara and Danny had chatted amiably on the way back to her flat. She had decided that it would be best perhaps, not to mention in advance that she’d invited the Doctor too. She made it up one flight of stairs before Mr Petersen, her downstairs neighbour accosted her about the power, the flood and the naked man in her flat. She deliberated trying to persuade Danny that Mr Petersen was a little strange. That wasn’t going to work, this wasn’t going to work.

“I’ve changed my mind, yeah? Let’s go out? If the powers been out I don’t want to think about the things in the fridge or the freezer. I’ll just drop my bag off, and we’ll go eat? Where you first took me? Yeah? My treat!”

She mostly didn’t breathe, if she kept going, didn’t pause for interruptions it would be fine. Everything would be fine. She had lists, she had post-it notes, she liked to be organised, others might have used the description control freak, or bossy, she ignored them. She kept heading up the stairs, gesturing that Danny should go down and wait, really, she’d only be 5 minutes. She’d drop her marking off, get a warmer jacket, look at her phone, nip to the loo, leave a note for the Doctor, 5 minutes, yes, she could do that. Racing through the door of the her flat she ground to a halt.

“DOCTOR!”

His head appeared from round the door of the TARDIS, followed by his unclothed torso. Clara had allowed the word “naked” to skitter through her mind but she rejected that and chose “unclothed”. She shooed him back into the TARDIS. She rolled her eyes when she heard him muttering about “humans, first they ask you to do something, then they change their minds, and why was she doing the big eyed thing at him again?” She did not have big eyes, well she did, but not like that and she didn’t have time for arguing and what had he done to her flat and what was that smell? 

She would kill him, that was simplest and best, she would kill him. Pleading for regenerations could have been a mistake. Ok, she was over reacting and she was probably hyper-ventilating but that man! Ok, that alien! She might have actually stamped her foot. She put her bag down, grabbed her purse, her jacket – decided to abandon the loo, shouted “bye” and had her hand on the door when the Doctor re-appeared.

“Are you coming back?”

“I live here, I don’t have a choice. You better get everything sorted by the time I’m back.”

She marched out of the flat, blocking her ears to his response of, “Yes boss.”

Linking her arm with Danny’s she strode off into the night. Danny carefully wiped a smudge of soot off her cheek. They had a lovely evening. Clara did not consider checking her phone every 5 minutes and she didn’t tune out Danny as he enthused about everything and think where she could have been with the Doctor.

The Doctor looked round Clara’s flat, he noticed the exposed wires dangling from the ceiling, the trail of footprints, the discarded clothes, the inadvertent location of his boxers, the acrid smell and it occurred to him, that although he’d turned the power back on, he might no, perhaps, have re-closed the freezer.

He cleaned, properly. Bagged and disposed of rubbish, attempted to smooth things over with the man from downstairs. Contacted UNIT to repair the ceiling and walls and floor, and didn’t listen at all when Kate Lethbridge Stewart expostulated on not being a construction firm, or painters, or decorators – he said something about everything being marvellous and hung up on her. 

Kate thought it was best all things considered to just do as he asked and not deliberated quite how the Doctor had caused this. Had he really said something about fish fingers? 

The Doctor returned the electrics to the way they’d been before, he re-sorted Clara’s books, he did not touch her clothes. The toaster seemed affronted when he approached it, he decided Clara could learn to get along with the toaster, really, electronic sentience was a gift, not a social inconvenience. He wasn’t 100% certain, or even 57% that Clara could use her bathroom. He’d keep the TARDIS here, in her flat, she could use the bathrooms there ‘til everything was sorted, she’d be fine with that.

Congratulating himself he’d remembered milk and sugar and biscuits he made more tea. He lifted a packet of sweeties from his pocket – perfect. He didn’t sit down on her bed and absentmindedly open the book on the bed side table. It didn’t seem to be a diary, it was therefore entirely acceptable to read it, yes, entirely. There were lists, places to visit, a page headed “Danny”, a page headed “The Doctor”, there were lists of words. He may have found that the was rather chilled and wrapped one of the blankets from round Clara’s bed round himself. His mind did not wander to thoughts of the bath foam, or the shampoo, or Clara’s fair or the way her eyes had looked at him. He was fairly convinced that he hadn’t fallen asleep – when he heard the flat door bang, he realised it was best to wait in the TARDIS. He didn’t stumble as he attempted to get up, wrapped in the blanket he’d forgotten about. He had definitely left a notice on the bathroom door indicating she should use the TARDIS, the TARDIS had lots of marvellous bathrooms, tropical showers, Olympic sized bath tubs, everything you could wish for. She’d be fine about it.

The sounds he could make out didn’t construe fine, he shrugged, probably a bad day at work, or a boring evening with PE – yes, that was certainly it, really, nothing was ever likely to compare to an evening spent robbing a bank. Feeling suitably please with himself, he settled back into his favourite chair and opened the nearest book. A sonic screwdriver fell out – excellent, he wondered where he’d left it.

The TARDIS doo opened. Clara said nothing. She glared. Her glares were eloquent. She appeared to have her pyjamas rolled under her arm. Sometime later she returned. Her face wasn’t painted, the Doctor like that, he remembered she preferred him not to say that out loud. He deliberated about saying “Good night!” How hazardous could that be? She was still doing that thing with her eyes. He opened and closed his mouth. He allowed himself a smile seeing she was wearing the fluffy duck slippers. He was glad she’d found them, he thought she would like them. She was gone before he could think of the right thing to say.

“DOCTOR!”

The shout penetrated the TARDIS doors, he presumed the old girl had something to do with that, as really, sound should not be able to get in.

He sprang forward, sonic in hand, through the door and into Clara’s flat.

“CLARA!”

She was there, her hair mussed from sleep, utterly adorable. No, he didn’t think that, this could be dangerous, he couldn’t think about how beautiful and vulnerable Clara looked at a time like this. He had extensive synaptic processes, he could think about more than one thing at once. 

Apparently not. Clara’s finger was jabbing his chest, quite forcefully, she was saying something. She seemed, what was it? Yes! Cross! Perhaps he shouldn’t have smiled.

“How could you?”

“How could I what? It seems an improbably long list, do you want me to guess? Is this a game?”

“Stop being childish!” (Clara may have unconsciously stamped her foot again – it was probably best not to draw attention to that.)

“I like being childish! There’s no point in being grown-up, it you can’t be childish sometimes!”

“The egg!”

“What egg?”

“In my bed.”

“Oh.....that egg.”

He really had forgotten. Her bed had seemed like a warm safe place to put it until he could take it somewhere safer. That had been his plan, tell Clara that dinner was a truly disastrous idea (maybe with different words), then take her to return the egg. Family reunions, she would like that (he edited out the swamp, the insects, the other dinosaurs), it would be perfect, memorable, they could have a picnic.

Clara listened to his explanation open mouthed, walked back into her room. She returned moments later, the egg wrapped in her blanket. She spoke one word.

“Go!”

Standing in the TARDIS, holding the egg in his arms, the Doctor reflected that things had not gone entirely as he had planned.

He sighed and set the co-ordinates for the egg’s home world.

Clara didn’t fail to sleep soundly and awake bright and early, perfectly refreshed for work. She also hadn’t found she knew more new and interesting swear words when she found the Doctor had left a flower pressed between the pages of her bedside book. 

And she certainly didn’t blush, realising he had read what she had written there.


End file.
